Dave, To be practical (I am every now and then), there is no BPL proposal in front of the Commission that would include shielding power lines. Frankly, if there was I would think we would be willing to support this provided FCC would make it extremely clear they would highly regulate offenders for any leakage that would cause interference. Having said this, it is obvious that power companies at least in general barely even give lip service to preventing and correcting interfering leakage from their lines as it is. Consequently, absent some iron-clad (maybe I should say, shielding-clad) guarantees and tough fines adopted by FCC I'd not even breath of the possibility of offering this solution. Being practical from an economic viewpoint, the power companies I am sure could not afford to shield their lines to insure non-interference. OK, so try and figure me out! Probably better off if you don't. 73 AMATEUR RADIO: The only fail-safe communications system in the world. ARRL: The reason Amateur Radio is! Jim Weaver, K8JE, Director, Great Lakes Division ARRL 5065 Bethany Rd., Mason, OH 45040-9660, Tel. 513-459-0142, E-mail <mailto:k8je@arrl.org> k8je@arrl.org -----Original Message----- From: Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ [mailto:dsumner@arrl.org] Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 5:05 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: [ARRL-ODV:9498] Re: FCC's Commissioner Abernathy Praises BPL You get no argument from me, Jim. We don't oppose every dumb idea that impacts the spectrum -- only the ones that impact OUR use of the spectrum. The problem with BPL is that its interference potential is inherent in the medium being used. So, there's nothing wrong with our opposing it as a concept. If you don't want to oppose it as a concept we could offer the following: "We support BPL as long as the power lines are shielded." Dave -----Original Message----- From: Weaver, Jim K8JE (CR) Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 4:44 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: [ARRL-ODV:9495] Re: FCC's Commissioner Abernathy Praises BPL Jim, Tnx for correcting my misunderstanding. Given the fact the power companies aren't interested in making BPL available to "my relatives in Indiana" I'll pull back on feeling kindly toward this line of thought. However, my basic point nonetheless remains. This is that we are "against BPL" as a concept, but rather we are against it as a matter of practicality - I think. We would not be fighting it if it did not pose the unquestionable threat of crapping all over our territory. Jim W. AMATEUR RADIO: The only fail-safe communications system in the world. ARRL: The reason Amateur Radio is! Jim Weaver, K8JE Director, Great Lakes Division 5065 Bethany Rd. Mason, OH 45040-9660 Tel. 513-459-0142 E-mail <mailto:k8je@arrl.org> k8je@arrl.org -----Original Message----- From: W5JBP@aol.com [mailto:W5JBP@aol.com] Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 3:26 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: [ARRL-ODV:9491] Re: FCC's Commissioner Abernathy Praises BPL In a message dated 09/25/2003 2:20:39 PM Central Daylight Time, k8je@earthlink.net writes: I agree with Greg, the concept of using electric lines to make the Internet more available in particular to folks in rural areas. Jim, this is a false concept. The BPL boys are playing it up, but in reality the farmer Jones are not going to get it. Let us say you have a farm or house five miles out of town. First off, they say that they will pull fiber to the last mile. Then the signal has to be injected, by pass all the pole pigs and amplified every 200 meters. This is a very large investment and the BPL people are just not going to do it. I was called by one of the BPL people and he admitted that they were just going to "pick the low hanging fruit." So, the idea that every home in America will have BPL broad band is a public relations hype. 73 Jim Haynie, W5JBP